I am Jason Shvili and this is my blog. I was born and raised in Canada and still live in the Great White North, but I also have roots in Israel and am extremely proud of my Israeli identity and heritage.
Whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say, please don't hesitate to post comments and tell me what you think. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Sunday, 25 December 2016

Barack Obama will soon end his term as U.S. President, but not before delivering another slap in the face to Israel. If you follow the news, you know what I'm talking about. Obama allowed a U.N. resolution condemning Israel's "settlement" building in the so-called "occupied territories" by not exercising the U.S. veto at the Security Council. It was Obama's way of saying that his administration would abandon its greatest ally in the Middle East and not put a stop to a clearly antisemitic declaration telling Jews that living in their ancestral homeland is a war crime.

I knew there was no way that Obama would end his presidency without taking a parting shot at Israel and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the U.S. president's obvious antithesis. Bibi is of course a leader who believes in standing up to terrorists and power-hungry, genocidal dictators, whereas Obama believes in appeasing them and trying to reason with them. Indeed, even members of Israel's left wing are not as naive as the outgoing U.S. president. Obama has kept taking shots at Israel, not necessarily because he hates the state and hates the Jewish people, but because Israel and its current prime minister in particular have refused to bend to his naive worldview.

Actually, Obama isn't just naive. He's also ignorant. He doesn't know his history. If he did, he'd know that trying to trade land for peace, as he has encouraged Israel to do, is a bad bargain and always has been. Israel has tried multiple times to give up land in the hopes of achieving peace, only to be attacked again and again and again. Israel withdrew from large Palestinian towns and cities, only to see them turned into safe havens from which terrorists could launch suicide bombings and other attacks to kill and maim Israeli citizens. Israel left southern Lebanon, only to be attacked again by the Islamist terrorist group, Hezbollah. Israel vacated the Gaza Strip, and in a matter of days, terrorists turned once thriving Jewish towns into sites from which to launch rockets at Israeli civilians.

"Oh, but what about Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula," Obama might ask. Well Mr. President, the first time Israel withdrew from Sinai and the Gaza Strip after the 1956 Suez Conflict, it was under threat of annihilation from Egypt and several other Arab states just a decade later. So Israel took preemptive action to defend itself in the 1967 war and again took control of Sinai and Gaza. Egypt eventually agreed to a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, in exchange for the return of Sinai. But fast forward a few decades and Israel is still regarded by most Egyptians as an enemy state. In fact, anyone in Egypt who appears to support normalization of relations with Israel is swiftly condemned, even within the country's political leadership, despite the existence of a peace treaty for over three decades. In addition, the Sinai has most recently become a base from which Islamist terrorists like Hamas and the Islamic State attempt to infiltrate and attack Israel. So did Israel really get peace in exchange for leaving the Sinai? It doesn't appear that way, Mr. President, does it?

If only Obama would study the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict before he attempts to impose solutions on us. Actually, he should first take a look at the history of his own country. If he did, he would find out about how Native Americans gave up much of their land in exchange for promises of peace with the expanding American empire. And look where it got them. I'm sorry, Mr. President, but I don't want my own people to share the same fate as those whose conquered lands now comprise the United States of America.